Author says public is ready for 'right thing' right now

John Bradshaw is a Houston-based best-selling author who has a new book out titled Reclaiming Virtue.

John Bradshaw is a Houston-based best-selling author who has a new book out titled Reclaiming Virtue.

Photo: Julio Cortez, Chronicle

Photo: Julio Cortez, Chronicle

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John Bradshaw is a Houston-based best-selling author who has a new book out titled Reclaiming Virtue.

John Bradshaw is a Houston-based best-selling author who has a new book out titled Reclaiming Virtue.

Photo: Julio Cortez, Chronicle

Author says public is ready for 'right thing' right now

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In a strict sense, John Bradshaw has spent the past 10 years working on his latest book, Reclaiming Virtue. But really, he says, it has been percolating for 45 years, since he was a young man studying for the priesthood.

Virtue, it turns out, is not about easy answers.

Bradshaw is best-known as one of the marquee names in popular psychology, remembered for such books as Homecoming, Family Secrets and Bradshaw On: The Family, as well as for several television series.

A Houston native who graduated from St. Thomas High School, he popularized the term "inner child" and brought talk of dysfunctional families into the mainstream. At 75, he no longer has a private counseling practice but still conducts workshops.

But this new book, subtitled "How we can develop the moral intelligence to do the right thing at the right time for the right reason," goes beyond his earlier work, blending his background in theology and philosophy with his work as a teacher and a counselor.

He uses his personal story shattered by his parents' divorce as a teenager, studying for the priesthood while secretly developing an addiction to alcohol, ultimately finding sobriety, only to develop a sexual addiction and those of other people to illustrate developing the inner strength, or virtue, to guide behavior.

"What I'm presenting is much more difficult than following a list of rules," he said.

But he also thinks society is ready for something more difficult, thanks to a string of public ethical lapses think former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer or investment scammer Bernie Madoff.

"Here are the citadels of authority," Bradshaw said. "They are crumbling."

While he is critical of what he describes during an interview as "the crap that comes out under the name of religion," Bradshaw says his book isn't intended to undercut religious beliefs.

"This isn't throwing out the Ten Commandments," he said. "It's about going beyond."

But he also draws a distinction between blind obedience to a religion's tenets and behavior guided by an internal system.

"I've been very careful not to suggest that people's faith belief system would do anything but support their becoming morally excellent," he said. "There are people who I believe can become morally excellent without accepting Jesus as their savior."

Bradshaw describes the new book as a labor of love and an extension of his earlier work."I have longed to write this book," he said. But he also knows some portions, especially those dealing with religion, may be controversial.

That's OK. Bradshaw has never been one to do the expected. In the early 1990s, he said, he declined to be interviewed by Playboy magazine, despite the fact such mainstream figures as Jimmy Carter had done so, because he felt the magazine had started many men on the road to sexual obsession.

Bradshaw writes in a two-story cottage behind the house he shares near Rice University with his second wife, Karen. But he remains active. He'll tour to promote the new book, which goes on sale Tuesday, and there is talk of a new television series based on the work. He also has given a series of lectures based on the book at Houston's Unity Church of Christianity.

He occasionally attends services at the church in Southwest Houston, and he said he enjoys them. But he no longer needs to be in a particular place to feel the central message of the spirit.